If you stopped eating tomorrow, you could easily live for several weeks. Stop drinking and you would keel over in a few days. But if you were to stop breathing, your lifespan would be reduced to only minutes. Breathing is so important that you cannot stop of your own volition. Hold your breath long enough and you’ll simply pass out and the breathing centre in your brain will ensure that you start inhaling again.

Stress, anxiety, posture and allergies can all lead to poor breathing habits, which can keep your body stuck in a cycle of poor health, reduce your ability to heal, cause muscle pain and tension and make you more prone to stress and anxiety.

Swimmers, divers and singers are all trained in specific breathing techniques and you, too, can learn how to change poor breathing habits to ensure a longer, healthier life. The two most important characteristics include breathing in and out through your nose and breathing with your diaphragm.

Why nature made noses

Breathing through your mouth at the end of a 10km jog is normal. However, it’s not normal or healthy while you’re sat watching TV, at your desk or asleep. As you breathe air in through your nose, your nostrils filter, warm, moisturise and dehumidify the air before it enters your lungs. Your nostrils and sinuses also produce nitric oxide, which is harmful to bacteria.

Mouth breathing also results in shallower and shorter breaths. When you take short, shallow breaths over a long period of time, your brain interprets this as difficulty in breathing and adjusts the posture of your head to tilt back in order to open the airways. This is known as ‘forward carriage’ by osteopaths, chiropractors and physios and it creates an enormous amount of strain on the muscles of your neck and shoulders, leading to chronic neck and upper back pain. Mouth breathing in children also affects the development of their facial bones and jaw due to incorrect positioning of the tongue on the hard palate.

Constant mouth breathing alters the pH of your saliva, making it more acidic, removing some of its antibacterial effect and making you more susceptible to tooth decay and gum problems. In anti-aging terms, inflammation of the gums is now linked to an increased risk of heart disease.

Chronic mouth breathing also activates the fight-or-flight response, which makes you more prone to feeling anxious and stressed. Simply switching to breathing in and out through your nose can have a calming effect. This is much more important to your overall health than it sounds. Fight or flight is all about short-term survival, so not only do you burn up nutrients faster but also any body functions that aren’t essential to fighting or running for your life are switched off. Some of these functions include digestion, fertility, healing and repair. In other words, chronic mouth breathing makes you age faster.

Deep from the diaphragm

The other hallmark of healthy breathing is diaphragmatic breathing. Your diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle that sits beneath your rib cage, assists in breathing and separates your lungs from your heart, stomach and other organs. During diaphragmatic breathing, your diaphragm contracts as you breathe in, enlarging your thoracic or chest cavity. This sudden enlargement reduces the pressure inside, which creates suction, drawing air into the lungs. As the diaphragm relaxes, air is pushed out as the lungs recoil.

Diaphragmatic breathing is effortless and uses little if any energy. Chest breathing, on the other hand, forces the muscles of your chest and shoulders to work hard and is a constant drain on your energy reserves. The muscles used in chest breathing are also known as the “accessory breathing muscles” and are designed to assist during exercise or periods of intense activity. They are not designed to be used 24/7.

The lower lobes of your lungs are larger and have the richest supply of blood. Diaphragmatic breathing delivers oxygen-rich air to the lower parts of the lung first. Chest breathing is shorter and shallower, delivering air to the top part of your lungs only. The movement of your diaphragm also massages the organs below it, such as the stomach, heart and liver. The change in pressure in your chest and abdominal cavity as your diaphragm contracts also helps to pump your lymphatic system.

To work out if you’re a diaphragmatic or a chest breather, sit up straight in a chair with your shoulders relaxed. Place one hand on your stomach and the other on your chest. Take a big deep breath in and watch your hands. If the hand on your stomach is pushed out then congratulations, you’re already a diaphragmatic breather. If the hand on your chest is pushed out, it means that you’re a chest breather and have some work to do in order to correct this.